My Gratitude Journal

Sometimes it's all too easy to get caught up in what is going wrong. Whether that be in our lives or someone else's. I have to admit, sometimes I get into a skeptical, pessimistic frame of mind and find it hard to shake. In an attempt to counteract that, last year I started a positivity journal. Each day I had to write one positive thought, whether it be about myself or something that happened to another person. I found it really effective and made me feel more uplifted. Perhaps it was a placebo effect, who knows. Well recently, I've been a bit down, stressed and a manner of other things so I decided to introduce a gratitude journal to my daily routine...

The journal in question is the botanical journal from Rifle Paper Co., a design they don't seem to make anymore. You can find similar styles here though. I'll be honest, this was a rather impulsive buy on a holiday last year. Basically I wanted every piece of Rifle Paper goodness I could find. It wasn't an essential by any means but I am glad I've found a use for it. If you don't want to splurge, look for a notebook among your collection or give a plain old exercise book a makeover. There's so many DIY's on Pinterest these days.

In terms of filling it in I like to include a positive statement about the day. For instance, above I wrote "there is always something good in every day". Then I like to include a list of things from that day which made me happy. I usually end up with six+ things and it really reinforces that quote. More so if I thought I'd had a shitty day. Something like listening to Florence can make me happy. I then include some kind of visual below. It could be anything really-whatever you fancy! So far I've used the back of a lipstick packaging, photos, calendar excerpts and my own drawings.

It's only been eight days so far but I'm finding this such a useful tool. Doing this at night leaves me in a better mood before I go to sleep and it reminds me, even if I'm in a bad mood, there's never days where it's entirely like that. I think gratitude journals are definitely something I'll be sticking to.